Mac's 100th All Schools Days set to unfold

McPHERSON - Contrary to popular belief, Mike Rausch has not been in all 100 parades celebrating McPherson County's All Schools Day.

But he has been involved in nearly every parade since his birth in 1944.

"I suspect my mother first took me in 1946," said Rausch, 68, who was born and raised in McPherson. "Once you were in kindergarten, you were on a float for your grade school. Then everyone from first through fifth grade marched boy-girl, boy-girl in the parade, carrying a balloon."

In junior high and high school, Rausch said, he played snare drum in his school marching band - except for one year when he played a bass drum that was nearly too big for him to carry.

"So, my first 13 years of school, I was in the parade, on a float or marching," he said.

All Schools Day has become an annual community tradition in McPherson. It's actually a weeklong event whose highlight is a massive parade that attracts between 30,000 and 40,000 people to the central Kansas town.

This year's 100th anniversary All Schools Day parade is set for 10:30 a.m. May 10 on McPherson's Main Street. Rausch said the parade will feature more than 40 specially built floats and more than 20 marching bands.

There also are special events scheduled throughout the week, including the creation of a sand sculpture built especially for All Schools Day by Florida-based professional sand sculptors Sandsational beginning Thursday. There also will be concerts by local classic rock favorites King Midas and the Muflers at McPherson's bandshell May 10 and country music band Gloriana May 11 at the McPherson High School Theatre.

The week's events also feature a carnival, family activities and fireworks.

For the 100th anniversary, there will be a recreation of parade floats from past years, a viewing of an All Schools Day documentary, a 100th anniversary commemorative book, commemorative quilts and a reunion of parade "May Queens" dating back to 1945.

Rausch said he first volunteered for the All Schools Day planning committee in 1973. This year, he's the committee chairman.

As chairman, Rausch's biggest challenge is to find enough transportation to carry the more than 80 past May Queens who will be returning to McPherson this year.

"I don't have enough convertibles to transport them," he said.

Rausch said the oldest returning queen, crowned about 1945, is 90 years old.

"She still lives in McPherson and still has her original dress," he said.

All Schools Day first was proposed in 1913. McPherson County School Superintendent I.C. Meyer came up with the idea to create an annual parade and banquet to honor eighth-grade graduates in the county's 131 country schools.

"He would deliver diplomas to all these schools, and geographically that was quite a chore," Rausch said. "Transportation was mostly by horse back then, so it could take months. The idea was to get everyone to one place to have a graduation ceremony."

Thus, All Schools Day was established, although it wasn't until 1914 that a parade and other celebratory activities were added.

The parade and other All Schools Day activities have continued to thrive through the years, thanks to the support of local volunteers and business leaders, Rausch said.

"No one gets paid to do this," he said. "Everyone enjoys it, and they support it. It's become part of the fabric of the community."

Eighth-grade graduations and country schoolhouses may be a thing of the past, but All Schools Day lives on, said Anne Hassler, director of the McPherson Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"Every second Friday in May, all local schools close, as well as some banks and businesses," she said. "It is a holiday. People get excited."

Hassler wanted to capture the spirit of the event through the All Schools Day Commemorative Book. The 100-page book, which contains nearly 500 historic photos and a history, was compiled by members of the All Schools Day committee and the McPherson Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The book is being released today at a cost of $12.95. It is available through the McPherson Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Hassler, who moved to McPherson just six years ago, said putting together the commemorative book was a lot of fun for her.

"I learned so much about what happened here 50, 75 years ago, and a lot about the history and historic places of McPherson," she said. "The (book) was a way to honor all the celebrations through the years."

Rausch said there's no reason All Schools Day shouldn't thrive for another 100 years.

"If we ever quit doing this, it probably would never get started again," he said. "It has its own momentum now."